


Between the Shores of Your Two Souls

by Decepticonsensual



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24633748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: Eddie Brock goes undercover to expose the biggest mob boss in San Francisco.  There's just one problem:  Venom's not so great at staying under wraps... and his presence has started giving Eddie some inconvenient urges at the worst of times.  Is Venom's personality bleeding over into his own - and how can he stop it?  Or is there something a little more... complicated going on?Now, Eddie's got to unravel the Mob's schemes, while sorting out his relationship with his partner in (sometimes literal) crime.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 17
Kudos: 164
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2019





	1. Scent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalika_999](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalika_999/gifts).



> This is for Kali, who has been INFINITELY patient with me. :) I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Set just after the movie. Content warnings: Explicit alien sex; nonconsensual drug use; threats of violence (no graphic depictions).

After the tumult of the first few days, Eddie Brock reached a kind of equilibrium with his new… well, _roommate_ wasn’t the word, but it was about the only word he could come up with that didn’t make Venom grumble, or Eddie himself feel like he needed to lie down.

He spent some time in those early weeks testing this new arrangement. Eddie found that when he was still, he could only occasionally feel Venom. He could always hear him – that deep, liquid murmur inside his skull, closer than a whisper, closer even than when Anne used to rest her forehead against his and he could feel the vibrations of her voice. But for the most part, Venom seemed content to stay put beneath his skin. It was only when a strong emotion passed through one or both of them that Eddie felt Venom’s physical presence.

So now, when Eddie feels a dark wave ripple across his shoulder blades, he knows it isn’t just a case of Venom making himself comfy. “You okay, bud?” he murmurs into his collar.

_**Why are we bothering with this deception?**_ Venom sounds irritable. _**We’re far more powerful than these men.** **You already told me they’re criminals. If you simply let me eat them –**_

Eddie coughs warningly.

_**Fine. But we could still defeat them easily, and take them to the police if you insist. And then we could go home.** _

The word _home_ thrums through Eddie’s bones with a sudden, tempting warmth. It brings him up short, and he stops walking so abruptly that the guy behind him on the street nearly plows into him. Eddie gives him a shrug and an apologetic smile, and the man makes a big show of walking around him, grumbling as he does. The reaction barely registers on Eddie’s radar. He’s too preoccupied with a question that’s become worryingly common since he’s learned to live with Venom.

_Was that feeling his, or mine?_

Shaking his head with a sigh, Eddie pulls out his phone – his cover of choice when he has to talk to Venom in public – and puts it to his ear. “We don’t just want these guys, remember? We want their boss. Guy runs half of San Francisco, and if we pull this off and get close enough to sneak a look at his books, we could be putting _him_ away.”

Venom flutters again, a tendril wrapping loosely around Eddie’s spine. It’s the oddest feeling, although not an unpleasant one – kind of like getting a massage from within. And okay, _that_ is an unsettling enough image that Eddie’s not going to dwell on it.

There’s also something in the way Venom is clinging that doesn’t feel like simple irritation. “Hey. Are you nervous about this?”

Venom doesn’t answer, which makes Eddie think he’s probably nailed it. It makes sense – for all that symbiotes are trained to infiltrate worlds using other life forms as disguises, they don’t seem to have much experience with other, more old-fashioned forms of deception. Riot never really bothered trying to mimic the personalities of the hosts he took over, or cared whether their behaviour seemed off to other humans; he just pointed them straight at his target and drove them for as far as they would go. Venom’s version of stealth is a little more sophisticated, but it mostly seems to consist (at least, now that he and Eddie are partners) of lying low inside Eddie and letting Eddie deal with the human interaction.

For Eddie, though, investigation is what he _knows._ The need to find out has always been a deep-seated hunger. For a long time, that hunger was uncomplicated and fierce; after Carlton Drake tried to ruin him, the hunger soured for a while, but Eddie still found he couldn’t bring himself to quit the game for good. When he tried, that hunger still ate away like acid in his belly.

Eddie knows journalism inside and out, and he’s pulled off more daring cons than this for a crack at the truth. And that was before he had Venom as backup in case things went south – which they won’t.

“You just leave it to me, buddy,” Eddie tells him, before dropping the phone back in his pocket.

He feels a ripple over the back of his hand, almost like a squeeze, and glances down in alarm – but no, there’s no hint of Venom’s silky black… skin, for lack of a better term. (It’s frustrating how inadequate human language is to describing a symbiote.) Nothing to give them away.

Eddie squares his shoulders, and walks into the bar.

Mid-morning, the hotel bar is relatively quiet. Visiting businesspeople with laptops occupy around half the tables, earnestly chugging their third and fourth cappuccinos, while a few clusters of people in suits are holding hushed conversations.

Without hesitating, Eddie strolls up to a group that, at first glance, is indistinguishable from the others – three men of around middle age, in clothes a little too nice to be off the rack, chatting with coffee cups in their hands. The only thing that marks them out is the otherwise empty table, without so much as a printed-out spreadsheet or scrawled agenda in a notebook. If these three are doing business – and they are – it’s with a distinct lack of paper trail.

Eddie, in his leather bracelets and jeans and t-shirt under his old motorcycle jacket, sticks out like a sore thumb. Which is exactly what he wants.

“Hi,” he says, walking up to the oldest of the three men and putting out his hand. “Eddie Brock, how ya doing?”

There’s no disguise like the truth, after all.

The man looks him up and down for a moment before his lips thin into what Eddie supposes could pass for a smile. “Brock,” he affirms, gripping Eddie’s hand hard. “McKenzie. Nice to put a face to the name.”

“Nice to get a name _or_ a face,” Eddie shoots back with good humour, and pulls up a chair without waiting to be asked. “That is, if you’re the one I’ve been messaging this past week – and you are, aren’t you?”

McKenzie’s smile widens fractionally, though he doesn’t answer. “So, I understand you can put us in the way of some information that could be… useful, to a friend of ours.”

“You can say Seamus Cooley; it’s okay.” Eddie grins lazily at the brief flash of thunder in McKenzie’s expression. “Come on, we’re all friends here. I’m sure you don’t have any secrets from your associates...”

And Eddie turns his head, and the rest of the sentence dies in his throat.

The other two men are also well turned out, but their suits lack the classic lines of McKenzies’s, and their shoes aren’t nearly as expensive (Eddie’s grasp of fashion always surprised Anne, given that he was never all that interested in it for himself, but then, clothes above someone’s means are often the most visible symptom of corruption). One is muscular, and watching Eddie with a steadily neutral expression – classic bodyguard. The other –

The other is extending his own hand across the table. “Pleasure, Eddie,” he murmurs. “I’m Robert King. And you’re right – you’re among friends here. Please, continue.”

Eddie tries. He really does. It’s just that his tongue is having trouble unsticking from the roof of his mouth, because King is _stunning._ Blond hair, broad shoulders, eyes that are shockingly blue, like neon. Eddie hasn’t found himself really… _noticing_ anyone since Anne. Something about King’s slow smile, though, seems to bypass Eddie’s brain and jolt directly down his spine, and oh, now _this_ is the last thing he needs while he’s undercover.

Eddie accepts the handshake, and runs the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, collecting himself. King’s hand is pleasantly cool to the touch, and Eddie allows himself to linger just a second longer than he normally would. He can tell that King notices, but it only seems to make the other man’s smile brighter.

Inside him, Eddie can feel Venom stirring – the symbiote equivalent of pricking up his ears.

Turning back to McKenzie – but enjoying the feel of King’s eyes on him – Eddie gives him an indulgent smile. “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? Everyone knows the city’s about to award one of the biggest construction contracts in its history. It’ll be worth a fortune, and your boss has been angling for it to go to his boys for months. He’s sunk some serious money into getting the Board of Supervisors on his side. What _not_ everyone knows is that one of them – Supervisor Stone – is already in the pocket of Mr. Cooley’s biggest rival, and he’s been blocking your boss at every turn. Mr. Cooley doesn’t manage to score this contract, and that’s gonna be pretty embarrassing for him. Some of the other powers in this city might even think it makes him look at little… vulnerable.”

McKenzie narrows his eyes at that, and his next words come out through gritted teeth. “You got a point, here, Brock?”

“What nobody knows,” Eddie plows ahead without acknowledging the interruption, “apart from yours truly – and, now, you fine gentlemen – is that Supervisor Stone wasn’t too careful the last time he met with his, ah, business associates. He even managed to get himself photographed.” He tosses a sealed envelope on the table and lets out a low, playful whistle. “Bad luck for him – but if I’m not mistaken, it’ll make your boss’s day.”

McKenzie stares at Eddie, then at the envelope, as if it might explode. When it becomes obvious he’s not going to pick it up, King reaches across smoothly and grabs it. He slits it open and shakes out a stack of photos that show, sure enough, Stone standing next to the unmistakable figure of the second-biggest crime boss in San Francisco.

Raising his eyebrows, McKenzie nods grudgingly. “So why come to us with this? Would’ve thought you’d go running to your publisher if you had this kind of proof.”

“Thought you guys might like first crack at the information. See, I publish this, and Stone gets removed, and everything grinds to a halt while they work on replacing him. City’ll be under a lot of pressure to get a new Supervisor who’s squeaky clean, too. Someone who’s not going to do business with your boss’s rivals, but who won’t do business with your boss, either. Worst case scenario for you, the new guy starts rooting out corruption on the Board, and there goes your boss’s in with the city government. But if I give you these, and then I keep quiet about it, then Supervisor Stone just gets a little word dropped in his ear and whoops, willya look at that.” Eddie snaps his fingers. “All those obstructions just – go away.”

“Oh, I get why _we’d_ want these. What I don’t get is, why would you do a thing like that? What, you get evidence of corruption at the highest level, and instead of shouting it from the rooftops, you come to us and you volunteer to bury it?” McKenzie leans back, his smile not entirely pleasant. “Aren’t you Eddie Brock, the crusader for the little guy against the rich and powerful?”

Eddie shrugs. “Once upon a time, sure. But if you’ve done your research on me – and it sounds like you have – then you know I learned the hard way that going up against the rich and powerful gets you burned. Unless you’ve got some powerful friends of your own.”

Venom shifts under his skin again, pleased, this time, at what he perceives as a compliment. And sure, that’s not exactly what Eddie meant, but he has to fight down a smile, all the same.

“And that’s what you want from our employer, is it? A friend?”

Eddie leans in, holding McKenzie’s gaze. “If I want to keep on… what did you call it? Crusading? If I want to keep it up in this town, I’m gonna need to know there’s someone I can turn to for protection. Your boss pulls the strings for some of the most powerful business interests in SF, as well as the Board of Supervisors. I figure, I scratch his back from time to time, maybe he scratches mine. Consider this information just – a little introductory offer, if he’s interested in doing business.”

McKenzie smiles flatly.

Eddie suddenly has the intense urge to lean just a little closer, and bite that smile right off his face.

He startles, and curls his fingers around the edge of the table, hard, so that the cold marble helps to ground him. No, no, _no_ , that’s the last thing he needs. At McKenzie’s raised eyebrow, Eddie shakes his head and laughs a little. “Someone must’ve walked over my grave.”

“Heh. Fancy that.” McKenzie rises and reaches to shake Eddie’s hand once more. “An intriguing proposition. We’ll be in touch.”

“W-I’ll be staying here for a couple days, so I’ll be easy to find.” Eddie tries to keep his tone casual, like being easy for the mob to find is a bonus, and not the very fear that led him to book a room at the hotel, so that they aren’t tempted to track him down to his apartment. Eddie’s had enough of armed men bursting into this living room.

“Say.” McKenzie snaps his fingers, as if he’s just thought of something. Eddie’s willing to lay odds that it’s nowhere near that casual. He tries to put on an expression of polite interest. “If you wanted to improve your odds, what would you say to taking on a little assignment for us while we think this over? It’s up to you, but it’d go a long way towards showing the boss he can trust you.”

“What’d you have in mind?”

McKenzie takes out a folded piece of paper and slides it across the table. “There’s a gathering here tonight, a… competitor of my employer -”

“Rival gang. Gotcha.”

“A _competitor,_ having a few business contacts over to his house. Nothing serious, but we’d be interested to see who turns up. Unfortunately, they know my boys well enough by sight that none of us can get close. Get a few snaps of the front door, see who comes and goes, that kind of thing. Easy.”

Eddie doesn’t trust McKenzie’s smile, but returns it all the same. “Sure. Why not?” The bodyguard nods as they depart. King favours Eddie with a grin like the sun.

_**So much easier to eat them,**_ Venom muses in his head, but Eddie gets the sense that he’s teasing this time.

It doesn’t reassure him.


	2. Hunger

Eddie hunches deeper into his jacket, wishing he’d brought something heavier. The roof he’s chosen – right across from the ridiculously opulent Beaux-Arts building McKenzie steered him to – has an unobstructed view of his target’s front door, but it’s awfully exposed to the winter wind.

Just as Eddie starts shivering in earnest, though, he can feel Venom unfolding through him, flooding his limbs with warmth. It’s a bit like having a blanket wrapped around him from the inside.

_**Better, loser?** _Venom asks.

Eddie huffs and doesn’t reply. He knows he’s being unfair, but Venom’s behaviour earlier left him unsettled.

Of course, V notices. _**Did that not go well? They seemed to buy it.**_

“It went okay – no thanks to you. Didn’t we talk about the whole eating people thing?”  
  


_**I didn’t eat anyone!** _

“No, but you almost had me chomping down on McKenzie’s head halfway through. I thought you were gonna stay quiet.”

_**I did. That wasn’t me, Eddie.** _

Eddie sits up so fast that his vision goes momentarily grey at the edges, before sharpening into the preternatural clarity that means Venom is intervening to compensate. (That’s another thing Eddie hasn’t gotten used to – Venom’s senses constantly, subtly bolstering and heightening his own.) “ _What_?”

_**That desire to bite him – that was all you.** _

“So you’re telling me, what, _I’m_ going around with the sudden urge to bite guys’ heads off?” Eddie scrubs at his face.

Venom… _ripples_ through him, and Eddie shivers.

_**But you enjoy it.**_ There’s a brief flash of remembered feeling – a mugger at the local bodega, the clerk’s terrified face, anger, _hunger._ It wrings a deep groan out of Eddie, and he clamps down on the feeling.

“That’s exactly the point!” He doesn’t mean to snap; he can feel Venom’s confusion, and his own sharp spike of guilt in response. That only adds to the queasy sense of _wrongness,_ because those two emotions are separate, one Venom’s, the other his own. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. If Venom has started bleeding into him… if his hunger is affecting Eddie, even when Venom is being consciously silent… where does that end?

_Or maybe you really do just like it,_ whispers a treacherous little voice in his head, a voice that’s definitely Eddie, and not Venom. _With that mugger. With Drake. When it’s_ justice. _And justice that comes so much quicker than doing a piece, shouting into the ether and then waiting for the fallout, for the courts or public opinion to punish those who need it. Isn’t this so much more certain, to deal out justice yourself? Isn’t it so much more…_ satisfying _?_

Eddie shakes his head violently, as if he’s trying to dislodge all the voices, his own and Venom’s alike. “I do like it. I have been, I mean. I thought it was because I liked seeing bad guys get what’s coming to them. But now I’m thinking, what if it’s really just you? What if that’s your feelings, steamrollering over mine? We’re supposed to be _separate people_ , V. We share a body, but we don’t share a mind. We’re not the same.”

For just a second, the ground seems to tilt under Eddie, a wash of hurt making it difficult to breathe… and then it recedes, fast and rough as the undertow of a wave rushing back out to sea. Eddie is left with no sense of Venom, and when he gently probes, it’s like Venom shrinks away, burrowing deeper inside him.

He’s left with only his own sick sense of unease, alone on the rooftop. More alone than he’s felt in a long time.

“V?” Eddie is whispering, as if he’s afraid to startle Venom. “V, I’m – wait.”

Movement. Eddie ensures the camera is zoomed in and ready. He holds his breath as a black car pulls up at the front entrance, and an elegantly dressed couple exit. Eddie recognises them from the society pages. He manages to snag a good shot of the husband shaking hands with their host, who’s emerged to greet them.

And moments later, everything goes to hell.

Something, whether it’s the gleam of a lens or a motion Eddie didn’t hide well enough, catches the host’s eye. He squints at the rooftop – Eddie ducks down as best he can – and then leans over to say something to one of the black-suited guards on the door, before ushering his guests inside.

As soon as the door shuts behind them, the guard reaches inside his jacket and –

Fuck. Eddie scrambles to his feet and runs.

He hears a ping off the masonry behind him. A silenced gunshot, hitting way too close for comfort. At least one of the guards will probably try and circle the building to cut him off, but they’ll need to round the whole block to do it. If Eddie can just get to the ground before then, he’s got a chance.

He reaches the edge of the roof, ready to leap down, when a sudden thought checks him in his tracks.

Venom is still eerily quiet.

Eddie balks at the roof’s edge, staring down into traffic.

_Venom wouldn’t let me get hurt. He wouldn’t._

They’ve done this a thousand times – Eddie jumps, and Venom flows out around his limbs, wrapping him in their combined form, sending that rush of sheer _power_ through them and making the landing from a forty-storey drop feel as casual as swinging his legs out of bed in the morning. That Venom would fail to protect them is unthinkable.

But… V’s never pulled back from him this far. Is it possible for the symbiote to hide somewhere inside Eddie? Could that affect how quickly Venom can react to what they do – what _Eddie_ does? Because if Venom is somehow… _disconnected_ from Eddie, and that slows their reaction, even by a fatal half-second –

Eddie hastily clatters down the fire escape instead, and hits the ground running.

It’s almost too slow. He barely manages to vault onto his bike when he hears footsteps behind him, and a second shot whizzes past him, not quite drowned in the roar of the engine. He peels away from the curb and tears off down the street, his heart pounding, Venom still quiet in his head.


	3. Taste

“Easy, you said! I don’t remember anything about getting fucking shot at!”

McKenzie’s cackle on the other end of the phone is entirely unsympathetic. “Welcome to the life, Brock! You get anything useful?”

“Yeah, if him shaking hands with one of the biggest backers of that huge development project on Arguello helps you. Me, I’m not sure it was worth my nearly _catching a bullet,_ but...”

“Quit whining, kid, you did good. Those other photos of yours did the trick, too. My employer says you’re in.”

Eddie pauses to breathe. “Glad to hear it. Where do you want me to send the pictures from tonight?”

“No need, just stick them on something portable. Someone’ll be by.”

McKenzie hangs up, and Eddie slumps against the hotel room wall, letting himself slide to the floor. The adrenaline is washing out of his system, leaving him feeling shaky and weak; but he has bigger worries, now.

“Hey, Venom?” he whispers.

Nothing.

Eddie tilts his head back against the wall behind him, trying not to panic. It’s one thing for Venom to go quiet by prior agreement (and even then, the symbiote isn’t always happy about it), but this –

“V, I need to hear you, buddy.”

At that, it’s like a tendril unfurls in Eddie’s mind, Venom’s presence blooming, huge and definite and such a relief that Eddie could sob.

_**Right here, loser.**_ There’s something oddly… flat, about Venom’s tone.

Eddie takes a deep, heaving breath, relishing Venom’s warmth under his ribcage. “Hey, don’t scare me like that. Where’d you go?”

_**Thought you wanted to be alone.** _

“I didn’t know you could do that. Go where I can’t feel you.”

_**We’re separate people.**_ The words are wry, but under that, Eddie can sense their sadness. His own answering stab of misery worries him, briefly; but V is clearly hurting, and for Eddie to feel strongly about that doesn’t require Venom’s feelings to be bleeding into him.

He pinches his nose, tries to keep his voice steady. “Can you come out here, please?”

A pause, and then a small head emerges on the end of a long, liquid tendril, arcing around to look Eddie in the eye.

“Hey.” Eddie smiles tiredly. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way, V. I want what we have. I just don’t want to lose _me_ in the process, is all.”

From the tilt of Venom’s head and the hurt still radiating through them, it’s clear that Venom doesn’t really understand. Eddie opens his mouth to try and explain better – though he’s feeling a little helpless to get this across to the symbiote – when there’s a knock on his hotel room door.

Venom vanishes back into him before Eddie manages to get to his feet.

He was expecting someone a little lower down the food chain, one of McKenzie’s soldiers, so he’s a bit surprised to see King on the other side of the door. Eddie opens it. “That was quick.”

The gangster smiles. “I was in the neighbourhood when McKenzie called.”

“Uh-huh. Well, come in, lemme just download those pictures for you.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees King glancing about himself curiously. Eddie would apologise for the state of the hotel room, but he figures a bit of a mess is probably better; it doesn’t look like he has anything to hide. He finishes, flips the memory stick in his hand, and turns back. “Here.”  
  


King’s fingers brush his, and the man glances down at Eddie’s hand as he pockets the device. There’s the faintest, lightest trace of pink creeping over King’s cheeks. It’s not what Eddie would have expected, and it’s strangely enticing. “You really do live up to the hype, don’t you, Eddie?”

Eddie favours him with a cocky grin. “That’s what they say.”

“You know that’s, ah… that’s not _all_ they say about you,” and _oh,_ Eddie is definitely not imagining that tone now. King is gazing up through his lashes at him, and at some point he must have inched closer, because he’s near enough for Eddie to practically feel the heat of his body. King’s breath ghosts over Eddie’s lips with each word, and a deep shiver runs through Eddie.

He doesn’t trust this at all, this is all way too convenient and the fact that one of Cooley’s men has Eddie figured out this easily is a miniature paranoid breakdown all on its own; he needs to keep his head, but it’s been such a long time since he’s been this close to someone.

Except, of course –

Once again, Eddie feels the stirring underneath his skin, Venom’s attention caught.

It’s so natural, that feeling of Venom’s mind brushing against his, that it eases the last of the loneliness he felt on the rooftop; and just like that, it’s so much easier to step away. Which Eddie does, not without a certain reluctance. He favours King with an apologetic smile. “I wouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

King’s smile in response seems genuinely regretful, although Eddie is still wary. “Right. Understood. You have a good night, Brock.”

“And you.”

_**Bad guy, Eddie,**_ Venom says absently as Eddie shuts the door.

“Yeah, he is. You don’t have to tell me that.”

_**But you want him.** _

It’s a little startling to hear, put baldly like that. It’s not something he and Venom have ever discussed. (But then, the breakup and the trainwreck of his career all but killed his libido for so long; it’s perhaps unsurprising that Venom is curious now that Eddie’s desire has apparently woken back up.)

“Not really,” he answers, plonking down hard on the bed. “Sure, I think he’s attractive. Human brains can be stupid like that, sometimes. But even if I wanted to, I can’t trust him. And… not trusting him also makes me not actually want him. For me, it’s always been better if it’s someone I know, someone I’m close to.”

Venom is quiet again, but not absent. If anything, it _feels_ like he’s thinking furiously.

“Do people from your world – um, pair-bond?” Eddie tries.

A shiver of surprise and – if Eddie’s not mistaken – a hint of revulsion. _**What, with each other?**_

“I’m guessing that’s a no.”

_**It’s not unheard of, but… Usually, we only work together for a purpose. Conquest. Offspring.** _

“What about with anyone else?”

_**Sometimes.** _

Eddie narrows his eyes, a suspicion forming. “With hosts?”

The answer is a little more reluctant. _**Sometimes.**_

And a memory opens up, unbidden – or perhaps bidden, but not by Eddie. The woods, dim except for the distant glare of floodlights, Eddie practically shaking in relief at his sudden rescue from death. A figure looming out of the darkness, and a voice, Ann’s, with Venom’s warm growl wrapped around it. _H_ _i, Eddie_ _._

And then he’s being kissed, he and Anne are melting into each other and Venom is flowing around them, _through_ them. The strange, hot touch of Venom’s mouth – that tantalisingly long tongue twisting around his own, needle teeth barely scraping Eddie’s bottom lip, hungry but so _careful_ and Eddie

_Eddie opens up to him, warm and slick and alien, his mouth and his skin and his body so soft, so inviting. Normally, all he’d want is to crawl inside and curl up and be home, home, but this is different –_ Eddie _is different. He wants to linger against Eddie’s lips. He wants to play here, find out what other touches cause that hot, electric crackle that surges through both of them, wants to wrap himself around Eddie and just hold, without being absorbed, feeling every inch of skin lips tongue breath_

– Eddie’s awareness comes back like a tidal wave, leaving him gasping, hunched over and clutching his knees. Distantly, he’s aware of a thread of alarm that isn’t his. Venom pokes at his brain. _**Eddie?**_

“I’m – I’m okay, buddy. That was just...” _Terrifying. Too much._ Eddie considers for a moment, replaying the feeling – the feelings, two sets, Eddie’s and Venom’s, but twined together like their bodies. Bleeding into one another, yes, but not like obliteration. Like a kiss.

_That was hot and I don’t know what to do with that._

Eddie settles on, “I didn’t know it could work like that.”

_**Sometimes.** _

Eddie wonders if there’s an unspoken, “With you,” attached to that response, but he doesn’t want to push. Venom still feels uncharacteristically uncertain. With a sigh, Eddie says, “Let’s get some rest, okay? It’s been – it’s been a hell of a night.” He makes short work of his jacket, jeans, and shoes, which is about all he has energy for, and flops backwards unceremoniously on the bed. “Hey, V? You don’t need to do that on my account. Disappear, I mean.” Eddie’s eyes are already starting to feel heavy. “I want you around.”

_**I would never let you get lost, Eddie,**_ Venom says softly, and Eddie briefly tries to make sense of that, before giving up and falling asleep.


	4. Devour

Somewhat surprisingly, McKenzie’s as good as his word. Eddie’s in. Over the next few weeks, he’s introduced to a few more of Cooley’s lieutenants – men and women he’s only heard whispered about before now. He keeps up regular instalments of the show, the blog, the new podcast, and it’s eerie how much easier it is to get access to where he needs to go for the normal stories, from night clubs to toxic waste disposal sites to prisons. A few words have clearly been whispered in a few ears behind the scenes, because it feels like Eddie’s got himself an all-access pass to the city. And on top of that, he does a job here and there on request, ferreting out information on Cooley’s rivals.

Every detail and every photo he sends McKenzie also makes its way onto a secure dossier, linked to a dead-man switch. Once Eddie has enough information to take down Cooley – or if anything happens to Eddie in the meantime – all of it goes public. There’s enough in there to burn the organisations of Cooley’s main rivals to the ground, and that will still be a hell of an accomplishment, Eddie tells himself.

But the treacherous voice in his head whispers that if he can’t get Cooley’s gang at the same time, all he will have done in the end is probably open up more territory for Cooley to take over by eliminating the competition.

_**We could always just…**_ croons Venom, the other voice in his head.

“Not eating him.” Eddie steps out of the shower and towels off his hair. “We need to take down all of them, so unless you’re planning on scarfing about four thousand mobsters and paid lackeys at once...”

Venom’s silence says he’s certainly willing to _try._ Eddie laughs in spite of himself, and turns to the tux hanging on the hook, still in its dry cleaning bag.

Tonight may finally give him the chance to get what he needs. He’s been invited to a reception at Cooley’s place in Pacific Heights: an opportunity to meet the man himself. More to the point, an opportunity to use the tip-off he got from a disaffected member of the gang about a hidden room where Cooley – old-school to a fault, it seems – still keeps paper files on all his dealings.

Eddie takes his time over the suit, and his hair, wanting to make sure he looks the part. The journalist who sold out and is now living it up. He spreads his hands in the mirror. “Well? How do I look?”

There’s a ripple of black across his collarbone – not even visible under the tux, but enough to send a delicious shiver through Eddie.

_**Not bad for a loser,**_ is what Venom says, but the words don’t do justice to the dangerous heat behind them.

***

As planned, Eddie spends the first half of the party gawking at the decorations, gorging himself on the buffet (something Venom has been vocal about looking forward to since they got the invitation), and just generally establishing himself as someone sturdily harmless. Eventually, once things pick up and the crowd in the ballroom is big enough that it’s easy to disappear, he excuses himself from the company of a fashion editor and the head of one of Cooley’s construction syndicates and strolls out, asking a waiter loudly along the way for directions to the bathroom.

From there, it’s a fairly simple matter to check that the corridor is empty and slip down a side passage. The painting Eddie’s been told hides the secret door is unguarded, which feels a little too easy; on the other hand, it’s probably to avoid drawing too much attention to it. The latch is exactly where Eddie’s informant said it would be. The entire section of wall swings forward, and Eddie steps through, closing it after him.

Keeping his Venom-enhanced hearing peeled, Eddie gets to work. He’s gotten good at picking locks over a long career of being where he shouldn’t. One after the other, the locked filing cabinets yield to him. The drawer in the single desk inside the cramped space is a little harder, but once he has it open, it gives up the most important treasure of all – an account book. Every picture of every page is immediately added to the dossier; it’s more than enough to sink Cooley’s operation. For good measure, Eddie tears a particularly juicy page out of the book and tucks it beneath his shirt.

He puts everything back and gets out. Gets as far as the end of the corridor before he hears people walking towards him. A moment later, McKenzie rounds the corner, bending his head low to listen to a man who can only be Seamus Cooley.

Eddie skitters to a halt, and nods at McKenzie before turning his smile on the newcomer. It’s okay; he’s far enough from the door, now, they can’t suspect. They _can’t._

And, it appears, they don’t. McKenzie whispers in Cooley’s ear for a moment and Cooley extends a hand. “Eddie Brock. Seamus Cooley. It’s good to meet the young man who’s been doing so well for my organisation.”

“It’s an honour, sir,” Eddie replies, keeping his voice and his eyes soft – exactly the way he does in an interview to put his subject at ease, right before he sticks the knife in.

“Walk with me,” Cooley says. He steers Eddie up a back flight of stairs and along a hallway that’s less lavishly decorated than the ones downstairs. Instead of monumental abstract paintings, this corridor only boasts a few black-and-white photos, mostly cityscapes. Eddie gets the sense that this is a part of the house few outsiders see, so Cooley has it decorated more to his own tastes.

The man leads Eddie to a study, done up in simple, warm wood tones, with a huge picture window overlooking the Bay. He pours them each a finger of whiskey from a crystal decanter. “You a scotch man?” Cooley asks. “Bourbon?”

“Never could really afford to have a preference,” Eddie smiles, and waits for Cooley to drink before he follows suit. The mob boss downs about half his glass in a single swallow, looking Eddie up and down appraisingly.

“I won’t beat about the bush, Mr. Brock. An organisation like mine – well, it tends to stagnate if we don’t have a constant flow of new ideas. New blood. As a journalist and an outsider, you’ve been able to find out things in the last few weeks that my own men would never have been able to get near. We need young men like yourself in our ranks.”

The whiskey is stronger than Eddie is used to. Even from the single sip he took, his head feels light. He blinks, trying to focus on what Cooley is telling him.

“That’s why I was so pleased when you approached Mr. McKenzie. You’ve done well for yourself.”

It’s not the whiskey.

Eddie’s vision swims, and he staggers. The tumbler falls to the floor.

“And that’s also why I was so disappointed when I found out you planned to betray us.”

Eddie tries to form words, but only a few faint, pained gasps escape his lips. He crumples to one knee, and attempts to scramble backwards as Cooley looms over him.

“Once we got out of Jones that he’d given you the location of my files, I knew what you were after, and I knew it wouldn’t take much to trap you. That’s why you got an invitation to tonight. I wanted to do you the courtesy of making sure.” Eddie’s field of vision is greying out at the edges. Distantly, he feels Cooley reach down and pat at his suit front, finding the shape of the stolen page and extracting it. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Mr. Brock. You’re going to go for a nighttime drive, having had a little too much to drink, and you’re going to take a careless tumble off a clifftop in the Presidio. By the time they find your body, they’ll still be able to detect the alcohol in your system, but any trace of the interesting little compound I put at the bottom of your glass will be gone. It will be a very sad occasion. One of the city’s rising stars, taken from us too young.” Eddie makes one last-ditch effort to tell Cooley about the dead-man switch, but it comes out as a wordless whimper. “Goodbye, Mr. Brock.”

A hand pats his cheek. Eddie snarls inside. Then the grey that’s been slowly swamping his vision turns to black, and he’s gone.


	5. Consume

_**Eddie.** _

Eddie Brock feels his eyes snap open.

His head feels like there’s a jackhammer working away at the inside of his skull. All he wants is to close his eyes and sleep, but when he tries, he finds Venom forcing his eyelids open.

_**Eddie, we have to get up.** _

Eddie makes himself look around. The room is empty, now, but not that much time can have passed; the whiskey from his glass is still seeping into the carpet. If Cooley is smart, he’ll keep Eddie up here, unconscious, until the partygoers head home and he can have a couple of his men freely lug Eddie downstairs and transport him out to the Presidio to stage the accident. That buys them a little time, but how much?

He tries to push himself to his feet. Nothing moves.

Again, straining, begging his arms to obey him long enough to at least push him up to sitting. It’s useless. Whatever Cooley gave him has him mostly paralysed. Eddie whimpers, hating the sound of it. Inside his head, it’s a scream of rage.

_**Fuck this,** _Venom says, and suddenly Eddie is surging to his feet. It’s the strangest sensation; he can _feel_ his limbs moving, but he isn’t moving them. He’s a passenger in his own head. Venom – the two of them – lurch upright, and then take a moment to steady themselves. Then a step, two, stiff at first but with Venom quickly adjusting to the way Eddie normally moves, the way he balances.

_That’s it, V,_ Eddie thinks, aware that Venom can’t hear him but hoping he feels the encouragement all the same.

No guards outside the room, but Eddie’s learned better than to trust that. They retrieve Eddie’s phone, and a couple of flicks of the thumb are enough to publish everything Eddie’s got, and send a copy, marked URGENT, to his friend on the police force.

That should have the cops at Cooley’s door shortly. Now, the only thing is for Eddie themselves to get out alive.

They wind their way back downstairs, avoiding the ballroom, looping around to the foyer and the front door instead. They’re almost within sight of it when they hear a voice behind them.

“Eddie! I was hoping I’d see you tonight.”

They turn. King is flanked by three bodyguards. He’s smiling, though, like he’s genuinely greeting an acquaintance he’s fond of, rather than like he’s just caught a fugitive. Is it possible he doesn’t know…?

Eddie can feel a growl bubbling up in Venom’s throat.

And then Venom smiles with Eddie’s mouth. “Same here, Robert,” he all but purrs. “Man, though, I wish you’d caught me sooner. I actually have to head home; I _**ate**_ something that disagreed with me.”

If King notices the unusual emphasis, he doesn’t give any sign. “Really? That’s such a shame; I was hoping we could catch up.”

“I’d like that.” Venom makes Eddie’s voice silky, like a spider’s web. “Gimme a call, why don’t you?”

“I will. Have a good night!”

To Eddie’s surprise, Venom actually winks at the man, before turning on his heel and slightly jerkily striding away.

And then they’re out, out the door, onto the street, and as soon as they’re out of sight of the house, Venom is flowing over Eddie’s limbs like an embrace and they’re leaping up to the rooftops. Building to building, they simply run, not slackening pace until they’re far away (and Eddie thinks he can hear sirens building in the distance, back the way they’ve come). Only then does Venom deems it safe enough to come back down to street level, vaulting a gate, depositing Eddie on a park bench and melting back inside him.

It takes a huge effort of will – and the lingering effects of the drug – for Eddie to avoid whooping out loud. He whispers, “V, that was _amazing_! You had them totally fooled! And since when are you _smooth_?”

_**I have game,**_ Venom informs him, which makes Eddie nearly fall over laughing.

Once Eddie’s finished, Venom points out, _**I didn’t eat anyone on the way out.**_

Eddie feels warm. He touches his own chest lightly, and a ripple under the skin returns the touch. “Thanks, buddy. Have to admit, I’m a little surprised.”

_**Why? You asked me not to.** _

“Yes, but...” Eddie pauses. It suddenly feels like his surprise isn’t particularly fair. Venom’s been unerringly patient with all of this, with Eddie’s work, no matter how much it’s taken over their lives. Venom just learned how to operate undercover, on the fly, because the alternative was doing something Eddie didn’t want him to do. He finishes, a little helplessly, “That was always my thing. I didn’t realise it was important to you, too.”

He’s not sure what answer he expects, but it’s not the one he gets.

In the stillness, Venom murmurs, _**You’**_ _ **ve**_ _ **changed me, Eddie.**_

Eddie aches, there, under his ribs where he can feel Venom curl.

_**Is it so bad if I’ve changed you, too?** _

And the ache intensifies, but it’s not only his. He can feel Venom’s hurt, an old hurt, tug like a half-healed wound. _We’re not the same. We’re supposed to be separate people._ The edges of Venom, still drawn a little bit back from the edges of Eddie. Still so careful, afraid to melt together entirely. Or is the fear Eddie’s?

_I would never let you get lost, Eddie,_ Venom told him once.

Eddie closes his eyes. He spreads his hand over his heart, and just… _breathes_ into Venom, there in the core of him.

“No, V,” he whispers. And he’s reaching out for Venom, in a way he doesn’t entirely understand – minds and forms rushing towards each other across that last barrier and twining together tightly. “No, it’s not bad at all. Let’s go home.”


	6. Nourish

Eddie is – they are – still giddy with adrenaline when they get home, and all but collapse on the sofa, barely bothering to shed the jacket and tie first.

To his faint surprise, Eddie finds he _c_ _an_ feel Venom. Not so much in a specific part of his body, but thrumming in his blood. His excitement is Venom’s and Venom’s is his; not obliteration, but an embrace.

“Can you feel me?” he asks suddenly, into the stillness of the apartment. “Separate from us _,_ I mean.”

The curiously _active_ silence tells him Venom is turning the matter over. As near as Eddie can tell, there’s something about his question that doesn’t track right for Venom. Perhaps the distinction between “me” and “us”. A few weeks ago, that would have worried Eddie, but now he knows that the distinction is still there in the ways that matter.

Venom won’t let him get lost.

Maybe he should ask something more concrete. He spreads his fingers over his collarbone – a gesture he’s begun to use as a way of reaching for Venom, at least in Eddie’s mind. He realises he never really wondered what it might feel like from the other side, whether it might be more than symbolic. “Can you feel that? I mean, I know you can feel it on my – our – skin. But on your… surface?”

_**A little.** _Venom sounds indulgent.

Eddie presses harder. “How about now?”

_**More** , _and Eddie isn’t sure if it’s a response or a command.

He digs his fingertips in. The buzz of exhaustion and adrenaline has left his skin oversensitised, and the pressure makes for a pleasurable ache. “How about –”

And Venom’s substance bubbles up between his fingers, covering his skin, melting over and into him.

_**Yesssss.** _

That deep moan hits low in Eddie’s gut, amplified by knowing that Venom can feel the effect his voice – the one truly separate part of them – has on Eddie. What began as an experiment is rapidly morphing into something else.

Eddie licks his lips. “V?”

… _**yes?**_ Venom sounds half-groggy with pleasure, but under that, his voice is starting to prickle with the beginnings of uncertainty. And that won’t do at all.

“Remember kissing me in the forest? Do it again.”

He expects hesitation, but Venom surges up against him, mouth suddenly manifesting and pressing against Eddie’s. Eddie can feel the curve of Venom’s smile, before the flicker of a tongue-tip parts his lips and that long, sinuous tongue curls into his mouth. Venom’s delight in the novelty of this shivers through both of them.

Eddie’s mouth opens hungrily. He can’t keep his imagination from racing ahead and picturing that tongue dragging across other parts of his body. The thought makes him pant, and he breaks off just to catch his breath; Venom melts back into him as soon as Eddie pulls away from the kiss.

“Buddy, hey, I didn’t mean –”

But if Eddie is worried that Venom’s taken his retreat the wrong way, he doesn’t need to. Thick black tendrils are blossoming out, winding lazily up his arms. One brushes his cheek. Another flicks the hollow at the base of his throat, and Eddie swallows hard.

Venom tugs at the unbuttoned collar of Eddie’s shirt.

A lopsided smile spreads across Eddie’s lips. “Impatient, aren’t ya?”

_**Want to feel you, Eddie,**_ Venom tells him, the drawn-out, almost-moan of Eddie’s name knocking the breath out of him. _**Inside and out.**_

And okay, Venom probably didn’t mean that to sound quite so _filthy…_ but then again, Eddie’s not entirely sure he didn’t, as Venom’s tendrils slip inside his shirt and begin to writhe against his bare skin. Eddie wastes no time in losing the shirt, then the rest of his clothes. “You sure you okay with this, V?” he pants, even as his fingers find and tangle with one of the tendrils, which are now eagerly stroking his arms and chest. The tendril responds by twining itself around his fingers.

A hot rush of _want_ swamps him. It’s Venom’s, Eddie’s, both of theirs; it’s crackling across their nerves like flame. Eddie gasps. Distantly, he can hear Venom chuckle.

_**I’m sure.** _

One of the tendrils snakes a long, torturously slow figure-eight over his chest, and _god,_ Eddie can feel it from both sides, the slickness of Venom rubbing against him and the softness of skin under his touch. His own body feels alien, intriguing, and he’s hungry to explore it. So great is that hunger that they find themselves wanting to wrap around those warm limbs and lap at every inch of that skin, and Eddie only feels it secondhand when his hips begin to buck, helplessly, begging for more of Venom’s – of _their –_ touch.

_V,_ Eddie breathes, unsure whether he’s said it out loud or only in their head. He starts to reach for Venom, but Venom is _there,_ in him and around him; they’re looking down at Venom’s tendrils, up at Eddie’s face, at Eddie’s chest, stomach, cock, Eddie can feel themselves poured out, stretched thin, every particle of their body alive and aching –

And then Venom pulls back, very slightly, disentangling just a few of those intertwined threads so that Eddie is able to lift his head – a little punch-drunk – and look out through his own eyes.

“What, you slowing down already?” he teases.

_**Wanted you to feel this.** _

“What?”

_**This.**_ And three separate tendrils wrap simultaneously around Eddie’s cock, and he nearly comes on the spot.

It’s like nothing he’s ever felt. The coils undulate over his skin in different directions, at different paces, swirling and clutching. He whimpers; his hips thrust, and the tendrils pull back a little ways in response. He can feel Venom’s amusement at the tease, and Venom’s hunger for their own touch, all at once.

“Come _on,_ V,” Eddie pleads, and it’s enough. All three tendrils return at once, working him, while others cradle him where he lies, or trace long, languid trails up and down his limbs. It’s too much, it’s _too much_ , Eddie is – they both are – coming apart at the seams.

A tendril brushes softly against Eddie’s lower lip. He opens his mouth; his tongue darts out, flickering over the tip. It feels smooth and alien – it feels warm and rough and mammal against his tendril. He doesn’t know which part of him moves first. They surge together, and Eddie is sucking hungrily, deep-throating the tendril as Venom strokes his cock, held and cradled and _full_ and it’s –

It’s a shockwave, ripping through every atom of their body. The room around them whites out. Secondarily, distantly, Eddie feels himself come, the frantic roll of his hips into Venom’s touch stuttering and then finally stilling.

A long time afterwards – or maybe only a moment – Eddie draws in a sharp breath. “Wow,” he murmurs. He’s always been a little dopey in the afterglow; fucked silly, Anne used to call it, he remembers with a smile. But it’s never been quite like _this_ before.

Then again, he’s also never had a lover so able to tell how he’s feeling, without his having to worry about being eloquent.

Venom’s tendrils are still coiled around his arms and legs. As Eddie watches, though, they recede, like rain being absorbed by the ground, until he can only see his own skin.

_**Mmmmmf,**_ Venom murmurs sleepily in his brain. _**Still here, Eddie.**_

Eddie lifts his fingertips to his breastbone. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Love one another, but make not a bond of love  
> Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
> 
> \- Kahlil Gibran


End file.
